Kline to lead TCH, Baylor Med pediatrics

Kline named head of TCH, Baylor Med pediatrics

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Dr. Mark Kline plans to remain involved with an international AIDS effort while tending to his new duties in Houston.

Dr. Mark Kline plans to remain involved with an international AIDS effort while tending to his new duties in Houston.

Photo: Smiley N. Pool, Chronicle

Kline to lead TCH, Baylor Med pediatrics

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Dr. Mark Kline, the architect of a local Peace Corps-like outreach to HIV-infected African and Romanian youngsters, was selected Tuesday to succeed the late Ralph Feigin as Texas Children’s Hospital’s physician in chief and Baylor College of Medicine’s chairman of pediatrics.

Kline, 52, will team with President Mark Wallace as co-leaders of Texas Children’s, the nation’s largest pediatric hospital. He becomes just the third physician in chief in the hospital’s 55-year history and the third pediatrics chair in the Baylor department’s 62-year history.

“Dr. Kline is a spectacular leader, a great person and a perfect fit to lead Texas Children’s and Baylor pediatrics for years or even decades,” Wallace said. “He understands the strategies, issues and opportunities at both institutions and should move them into positions of pre-eminence.”

Vacant for 10 months

The joint positions have been vacant since Feigin, a legendary figure in pediatrics, died of lung cancer last August. Kline’s appointment, approved by both institution’s governing boards Tuesday, takes effect July 1.

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Kline will continue as president of the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s, though his role will be significantly reduced and a new leadership structure will take over day-to-day operations. The initiative, founded by Kline in 1996, has provided care about 30,000 youngsters.

Kline acknowledged that he’ll be filling “awfully big shoes.”

“It’s a humbling experience following Dr. Feigin, the best boss any of us ever had, the doctor from whom I learned most of what I know,” Kline said. “Though I don’t expect to duplicate what he did over 30 years, I hope to use it as a springboard for further growth, to make Texas Children’s and Baylor pediatrics bigger and better in the years ahead.”

Kline said he wouldn’t have been able to take the new job had it entailed walking away from the international AIDS effort entirely.

Wallace said Kline will still be able to make occasional trips to clinic sites, but will spend most of his time in Houston.

Wallace said Kline’s No. 1 priority will be the recruitment of an additional 250 physicians to help staff a scheduled expansion that includes a new campus in west Houston, the 2011 opening of a maternity center at Texas Children’s and its new neurological institute.

There had been speculation the joint positions wouldn’t be filled until a resolution in the proposed merger between Baylor and Rice University, but Wallace dismissed such talk, saying it was always a high priority to fill the vacancies as soon as a thorough national search could be conducted.

Built collaborations

Kline will be “a wonderful successor to Dr. Feigin,” Rice President David Leebron said in a statement. “I say that with great confidence based on the experience we have had working with him to build collaborations with Rice, Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital to improve health care for children.”

Kline said that his goals in his new job include the creation of a residency program in global children’s health in under served communities, an idea clearly inspired by his international pediatric AIDS initiative. He said there is currently no such program anywhere in the country.